To answer, let me take you on a journey into what the word poverty describe,s in our world of modern day Poverty.

But first let us attempt to agree on what we mean by poverty. Can it be easily defined?

What does the World Bank say?
Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.

The European Union’s working definition of poverty is:
Persons, families and groups of persons whose resources (material, cultural and social) are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the Member State to which they belong.

There is no single, universally accepted standard definition of poverty. Modern definitions of poverty have moved away from conceptions based on a lack of physical necessities towards a more social and relative understanding of Inequality.

This is now the most commonly used definition of poverty in the industrialised world.

It recognises that poverty is not just about income but also about the effective exclusion of people living in poverty from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities.

And the United Nations, in a statement in June 1998 said:
Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and cloth a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.

Where does this get us? Trawl the web and you will find many other attempts to define poverty – some even distinguishing between Absolute and Relative poverty.

Is poverty man made?

Poverty is an unnatural state. Man has dominion over all the animals and plants and yet he is the only animal to be afflicted by poverty. When did you last see a warren of rabbits begging for work? Or blackbirds begging for bread?

So it would seem that poverty must be an unnatural condition for which man has only himself to blame.

The entry in Wikipedia suggests that poverty is a personal failing:

When it comes to poverty in the United States, there are two main lines of thought. The most common line of thought within the U.S. is that a person is poor because of personal traits. These traits in turn have caused the person to fail. Supposed traits range from personality characteristics, such as laziness, to educational levels. Despite this range, it is always viewed as the individual’s personal failure not to climb out of poverty.

So there you have it. If you live in poverty it is your own fault.

However, ‘Poverty’ writes Peter Townsend, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Bristol University, a man who has devoted most of his life to making people aware of poverty and its causes, says:

” Poverty is not something people impose on themselves for want of effort and community organisation. It is constructed by divisive and discriminatory laws, inflexible organisations, acquisitive ideologies of wealth, a deeply-rooted class system and policies which serve privilege in the short term and destroy society in the long term. Poverty is caused by private monopoly, landlordism, employerism, ownership.”

Private monopoly? Landlordism? Whatever does he mean?

What experts say about the cause of poverty?

The ‘Dollar a day’ organisations says:

There is no single cause of poverty. Poverty is too complex an issue to be the result of just one problem. There are, however, many interrelated factors that contribute to poverty in developing nations.

Around the world, the causes of poverty are similar. Lack of finances, health care and education are common causes of poverty. Still, the causes of poverty aren’t just about going without materials. Of all the causes of poverty, the most devastating is the lack of hope — a feeling that “I don’t matter.” Compassion International

Child Poverty Action Group:
The main cause of poverty is inadequate income, arising cfrom worklessness, low wages and the low level of benefits.

Ask yourself:

Why is income inadequate? What is the reason for unemployment? Why should man, with all his creative powers and manual strength be reliant on benefits? There has to be another factor. There has to be a fundament cause.

An organisation called Smallstock in development comes close:

Poverty is diverse and comes in many forms. However, there are many common factors, and these mostly tend to be related to limited access to land, assets, and services.

One more quotation, from Fight Poverty, will serve to illustrate the confusion of thought:

Poverty has many causes, some of them very basic.

Some experts suggest, for instance, that the world has too many people, too few jobs, and not enough food. But such basic causes are quite intractable and not easily eradicated. In most cases, the causes and effects of poverty interact, so that what makes people poor also creates conditions that keep them poor. Primary factors that may lead to poverty include overpopulation, the unequal distribution of resources in the world economy, inability to meet high standards of living and costs of living, inadequate education and employment opportunities, environmental degradation, certain economic and demographic trends, and welfare incentives.

Did they say ‘primary factors’? They did but they didn’t. The ‘primary’ factors they suggest are in fact all secondary factors. What are ‘primary factors?’

Economics is a science and definitions have to be precise in order to distinguish between cause and effect. The effects of poverty are myriad. But poverty has a single cause.

Poverty is caused by a lack of production of basic necessities.

The primary factors of production are land and labour. Labour applied to land produces wages and wealth. David Ricardo postulated in 1817:
Where land is free (unenclosed) wages depend on the margin of production, or upon the produce that labour can obtain at the highest point of natural productiveness open to it without the payment of rent. Where land is all enclosed the level of wages are reduced to the least a man will accept.

So immediately we have a focus on land and the level of wages – so often quoted in the statements above.

Adam Smith writes from (true life) to reinforce the suggestion that wages are not limited where land is freely available:

In treating of the Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies (Wealth of Nations, book 4, chapter 7), he says: “Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxes to pay…. He is eager, therefore, to collect labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with most liberal wages. But those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make those labourers leave him in order to become landlords themselves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other labourers, who soon leave them for the same reason that they left their first master.

Now let us try to examine the problem of poverty and why all the money and charity in the world have not provided a long-term solution.

There will always be people who are poorer than others but there should be no paupers. Poverty is an unnatural state.

The world is endowed with untold resources. Man has unlimited powers of initiative and ingenuity. Why are millions of human beings unable to provide adequately for themselves and forced to live in degrading poverty? Dependent on ‘benefits’ whether they come from their own government or international charity.

Humanity acknowledges that to harness the labour of others in slavery is wicked. But to claim land as private property is considered a natural right. Until we can see that land is a free gift of nature and is the inheritance of all people we will continue to endure all the social evils we attribute to poverty throughout the world.

The root cause of poverty for me lies in private ownership of the natural resource essential to life.

Private property in land has been long established. In giving all men equal rights of access to land it is not necessary to confiscate land, undo titles or nationalise land. It is simply a matter of collecting the land value rental thereby returning to the community the value created by the community. This can be achieved through Land Value Taxation.

The real tragic truth is that the accumulating of capital by the rich is the real cause of Poverty.

This accumulating is causing society to become too unequal. With the distribution of wealth remaining at the top of society causing inequality of opportunity.

According to the Inter- Nation Labor Organisation (ILO) there are 215 million five to 17 year olds trapped in child labor to day. By 2020 there will still be 170-190 million.

Thomas Piketty in his new book suggest a global wealth tax which in my view is impossible to ACHIVE.

It is also impossible to stop the poverty of Inherence capital.

The only way to spread wealth is to place a world wide Aid tax or Commission on all stock exchange transactions.

You may think that this is of no consequence, but once society starts to dehumanise its social and moral values with words it is devaluing its core values to the whims of the rich condemning the poor to the Scratch card of life.

Inequality is full of blame, while poverty is full reality.

Try it for yourself. Close your eyes. Say poverty. Now say inequality.

High consumption levels and over exploitation for the sake of profit is continuing to destroy our beautiful planet.

I can hear you saying so what is new.

Nothing I suppose.

But anyone with any intelligence is and should be by now realizing that with Climate Change we have constructed a materialistic civilization that is addicted to ravishing its life support system.

The question is. Why is it that we seem unable to agree a plan?

The simple answer is the fear of profit impacts.

What is driving this fear? Unadulterated Greed.

This greed in recent years has taken a new form call Sovereign Wealth Funds.

These are State backed investment bodies that are roaming the globe in search of Profit.

Investment funds that are threatening the hierarchy of legal authority and if not capped will convert all our efforts to combat the ills of the world into commodities to be sold. Air, Water, Energy, CO2 Credits, you name it.

A Sovereign Fund by its definition behaves no different from the state it is appendix.

With such concentrations of economic power they subvert the power of civil rights and human rights.

There is no distinction between state and private interests. No one knows who takes decisions within SWF’s or what criteria they have other than to make profit.

If you think that in the Arab world ( where billions from oil revenue are in these Funds ) there are no contracts on an institution to institution, state to state, or enterprise to enterprise all are a person to person, not to mention Russia or China you would have reason to fear the Privatisation of the Globe by these Funds.

They are not going away but are becoming an increasingly powerful actor in the International Political System and world economy.

In developing Countries they are replacing the World Bank and the IMF ( which might not be a bad thing as both are somewhat dysfunctional in a World economy that is run by computer software programs)

They are now major players in the market economic power struggle using economic globalization ( which does not exclude private market participants from its system) to freely move capital around the world.

You can imagine what is going ( if it is not already happening ) to happen to countries that don’t have capital wealth.

These funds are taking on the characteristics of large aggregation of private economic power for profit for profit sake.

I am sure being Sovereign that they are not subject to tax on their profits. strong>

The bankers, the CEO’s are not vulnerable to the vote of the common people.
(which they both pay for)

In allowing the continuing privatisation of the Planet uncontested by any rival you might be leaf to think that 9/11 put god’s stamp of approval on Capitalism as a way of life.

But when you look at Africa you might ask is Capitalism turning it into the recycling bin of the world.

We are living in a system that can never be satisfied no matter what we do.

It seems that the entire neoliberal system is held together by what appears to be common sensical myths and deceits all happily coexisting in the commodification of our daily life.

Massive growth of corporate power; globalization is not as some abstract, independent, natural development process, but rather a ruthless, corporate driven extension of commodity production.

It knows of no boundaries or limits to its grand designs, to its gathering of wealth, privilege and power.

Reshaping every dimension of human activity, it is intensifying social divisions which will result in a nightmarish world, with the spread of ecological devastation that recognizes no territorial or cultural boundaries.

Most people, however remain in a state of numbing resignation.

This may be true, but if we are to reevaluate the meaning of democracy we must find a way of making Capitalism responsible.

No better place to start than with Sovereign Wealth Funds capitalism’ s suicidal attempt to colonise nature, and privatize the world. It proceeds as yet unchecked.

I have said in previous blogs that we are incapable due to the God of Greed to acting as one.

If we do not cap the activities of these funds there will be nothing left that you can call FREE other than God.

Privatisation of our world is turning Democracy into an empty form of Political ideology.

Don’t get me wrong, Democracy as a political system out guns all other forms of governance.

Because it is a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections.

Because it allows the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life.

Because it endeavors to protection of the human rights of all citizens.

Because it is a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.

However, competitive return on Investment Capital is eroding the very essence of the blood given by hundred of thousands of our forefathers sacrifice’s in both world wars.

Why do I say this? Because it is being Privatised right in front of our eyes for Profit.

Let me give you an example.

It is my belief that our elected representatives in Government ( how manage our hard earned taxes) are being hoodwinked by the Economy into thinking that every service and national resource operates better under market forces rather than state control.

I have nothing against a fair Profit on Investment but I do object to what I call Eternal Profits.

Lets say you build a Toll Bridge, or a Toll road requiring X billion in investment.

I am sure you would agree that the investment should have a fair return but not an Eternal One. The bridge or Road should revert to the nation and be free to its citizens or at least begin to add revenue at a reduced rate to Government coffers for future projects.

This is not happening with Sovereign Wealth Funds investment. No only does the profit on return not stay in the country to create jobs or whatever it disappears to enhance the profits of the Fund in whatever country the fund happens to be based in.

This does not seem very democratic to me. It is the duty of our elected representatives to protect its citizens from exploitation.

By handing control of national resources and services to private enterprise it is achieving quite the opposite. Just look at anything that has been sold into the marketplace. Energy, Health Care, Water, Public transportation, Education.

But there is no generally accepted definition of Democracy but Oscar Wild might have it right when he said,

” Democracy mean simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people”

We won’t be able to stop Sovereign Wealth Funds from Privatising our lives but surely as intelligent people s we should Cap their Investments.

There is no economy without the environment. For that matter there is no anything.

By this I mean there’s is no question about it, if we turn a blind eye that is what we will have – Nothing.

There is no need for absolute knowledge for science to come to this truth.

Common Joe Soap can tell you.

There are no thresholds when it comes to Nature.

The Downwinders ( people who have been exposed to fallout from nuclear tests) found out that there is no such thing as teetering on a threshold.

We are being told that the two big ice sheets on the globe are melting.

So for crying out loud are we all sleepwalking.

Like when we obliged the Large global Oil companies by putting a Tiger in our tanks that turned out to be tetraethyl lead a nasty environmental toxin.

Science is about a gradual convergence on the truth. Capitalism is about Profits for profit sake.

At this point it is irrelevant what the scientists don’t know we must a new creationist strategy to tackle climate change. This change can not be achieved without removing poverty in all its forms along with all our other World problems caused by man’s Greed.

We must stop the privatisation of the planet by Sovereign Wealth Funds, and get capitalism to pay for what we value by placing a World Aid tax on all Stock Exchange transactions world-wide. ( see Previous Blogs)

There are thousands of World Organisations that I am sure are doing good work but if you look at the four bigger World Organisations you would be prompted to ask are they fit for purpose.

So let’s have a look.

The World Bank:

Established in 1945. Now owned by 185 countries its primary goals were to eradicate poverty, fight disease, reduce corruption, and not making a profit which it has of $3 billion in the last three years.

In Fact big business indirectly owns the World Bank because it sell bonds to big business and in doing so secures contracts for these de facto business earning fees. It has implemented policies such as Structural Adjustment, Deregulation, Privatization.

The question is has any country where it has operated risen to prosperity, or does its profit-making play a note or its big donors play a role.

The IMF:

Founded in 1945 to help operate a system of fixed exchange rates in which currencies were pegged to the dollar, in turn fixed with respect to gold in order to encourage International trade lasted till 1971 when it was forced to find a new raison d’être. This it did when Mexico and other Latin American countries announced they could not meet the Interest and principle payments on their large borrowings from oversea commercial Banks.

Along came the USA who dished out bridging loan to these countries and this is where the IMF stepped in to monitor these bridging loans arrangements and provide additional funds if they were satisfied with policy progress that the debtors were making. However its big break came when the Soviet Union collapsed. It started to give advice how to move from communism to a market economy. The countries who took its advice received big financial rewards.

Developing into what it is today a pawnbroker that imposes programs requiring Governments to reform their financial institutions ( state-owned to private) making substantial changes to their economic structures and political behavior. For example Indonesia in exchange for a £40 billion package( more than 25% of Indonesia’s GDP) the IMF set fuel prices down to the manner of selling plywood.

It’s now seen by many as the imposer of painful contractions and radical reform.

It is my view that it needs to return to a narrower agenda. Rather than waiting for a country to get into trouble it should be seen more as a client focused and supportive organisation. This would require not just a refurbished IMF which by the way would be far to expensive but a complete new International Monetary System. The current global financial crises could not more strongly support this if we are all to enjoy the benefits of Globalization.

NATO:

Founded out of fear in 1949.

Original Goal to ensure a collective Security of the West against the Eastern bloc. Now its goal is to safeguard freedom and security of its members through political and military means.

It reinvented itself after the fall of the Iron Curtain and now has 28 Independent Member Countries.

A collective reluctant soldier as it like to call itself in a world with 15 tons of high explosives for every man woman and child in the world and where a nuclear war would prove to be an act of mutual suicide. A somewhat inept organisation as shown by Afghanistan Iraq and now the Ukraine.

THe United Nations:

Inception 1945.

193 members vetoed by five permanent members. Lovely known as a gossip shop its budget has doubled over the last decade. Understandable you could say ( Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria) but over its fifty years of existence the budget for 2012/2013 had a 5% reduction approved is one of the only reductions achieved to date.

It is a public Enterprise whose agencies spend more than $36 billion annually. Yet there is no real transparency or accountability. Just try to get a financial or Audit information especially among the diverse UN Funds on its website. It has over 10,000 mandates many of which are obsolete and redundant. See list below. It is quite obvious that it must shrink or shed non-core functions and entities.

For example it has being counting eligible voters in the western Sahara since 1978.

It is incapable of change from the inside so we the citizens of the world must lodge a resolution demanding change.

Peacekeeping Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet as of 28 February 2014

[Note: statistical information on civilian personnel is as of 30 November 2013, unless otherwise specified]

Peacekeeping operations since 1948: 68*

Current peacekeeping operations: 15*

Current peace operations directed by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations: 16**

[*With the establishment of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) on 10 April 2014, as of that date the number peacekeeping operations since 1948 is 69; the number of current peacekeeping operations is 16 and the number of current peace operations led by DPKO is 17.]

I am the first to admit that there are more qualified to comment on Capitalism in the age of Globalization.

But here is what I see.

The age of Globalization and new technologies is profoundly reconfiguring Institutions fundamental to processes of governance and accountability ( for lack of a better words) in our modern States.

If you don’t believe me just look at Crimea, the Ukraine, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Somalia, Algeria,Tunisia, Chad, Burma, and on and on we go all being destabilized.

Why?

Because Economic globalization has transformed the territoriality and sovereignty of the nation-state.

The term Sovereignty, has a long history. From Aristotle to the UN Charter.

Globalization has had a short history as a ruthless corporate-driven extension of commodity production. Solidifying its hold over Institutions, labor, culture, and our very own lives. Now turning into a deadly cycle of terrorism and militarism.

The unbridled capital accumulation of Sovereign Wealth Funds will spread ecological devastation as they recognize no territorial or cultural boundaries. Devoid of any meaningful social ethics or planning mechanisms they are rapidly becoming the new terror spreading toxic contamination of water, air ,soil, food with global warming with resource depletion, ravaging Nature.

There can no longer be any doubt that their short-term objects of profit for profit sake are in direct conflict with the long-range survival – as human beings – of everyone on Earth.

Representing what I call Corporate colonization they are close if not already totally out of control while the wretched of the earth continue to increase with Poverty turning to Inequality.

I have said in previous blogs that we are incapable of change and that the only way we will affect change is to make greed pay by taxing all Stock Exchange transactions world-wide. We must pay for what we value. The only way to achieve this is for a people’s resolution to reform OUR WORLD ORGANISATION SUCH AS THE UNITED NATIONS , THE WORLD BANK, THE IMF ALL NEED REFORM.

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Not a day goes by that we don’t hear or read of new technologies of the information age.

So what if the ice caps are melting no one is going to change their lifestyles because of that.

Apathy is the defining emotion of our times, and ignorance is bliss.

We are all net working, face booking, twittering, flip boarding, you name it till the birds fall out of the sky.

Capitalism inherently is a system of Injustice, Inequality, and War.

The real question however is not the degree to which humanity is screwed but what are we supposed to do with the information.

The idea of global environmental catastrophe is horrifying hard to grasp. The danger is that we will do nothing. We live in a world in which we are all to blame.

Our sense of identity is changing. Who you think you are is changing to who Am I.

Democracy for sure as we know it is being eroded at an alarming rate.

Our private lives are being willingly and unknowable Data processed to become a commodity to sell to the point that we no longer have a collective will to act just incase it upsets the Economy,or our life styles.

We are being collectively bamboozled by overload of choice and information. WE ARE BEING MANIPULATED.

THE ONLY WAY TO COUNTER THESE TRENDS IS TO GET A COMMON WORLD VOICE BY WAY OF THE SMART PHONES / I PADS TO PRESSURE WORLD LEADERS WHETHER THEY BE LOCAL POLITICIANS, PRIME MINISTERS, PRESIDENTS, LARGE CORPORATIONS, UNITED NATIONS OR RELIGIOUS LEADERS.

SO JOIN MY MOVEMENT TO GET A PEOPLES RESOLUTION PASSED IN THE UNITED NATIONS FOR REFORM AND THE PLACING OF A 0.007% AID TAX ON ALL WORLD STOCK EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS.